


The Narrative of Sissel

by foxhuhu



Category: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 22:38:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16669693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxhuhu/pseuds/foxhuhu
Summary: This is a story about love, friendship, and family. A story about life and death.It contains a long re-iteration of the game plot itself (which was originally written so that some friends of mine who had not played the game could also understand), along with a full new post-end story from Sissel's (the cat) perspective, which is the main part of the story.It is not a very happy story, but I like it myself.The fic was written in 2012. Since I am not a native English speaker, it takes me six years to finally made up my mind to post it here.Please excuse me for the possible mis-use of language, and also please read the notes before you proceed.





	1. PROLOGUE

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [西塞尔的自述](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17995613) by [foxhuhu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxhuhu/pseuds/foxhuhu)



> Reminders and warnings: I am not a native English speaker, but I played the game in English and wrote the fic in English. This is the only fanfic that I wrote in English and I tried my best to make things clear. Although I had asked an American friend of mine to read through the whole thing, please excuse me for any errors/miss-use of the language. 
> 
> The fic was written in 2012, I think. And it takes me six years to conjure up enough courage to post it internationally. The content contains references to certain real-world countries/agencies/events etc, but they have nothing to do with politics whatever. It would take quite a lot of time to edit these things so I decided to leave them as they are. I am not quite sure whether any of these things would be bothersome or offending. If they do, please leave a note to inform me. I can make changes where necessary.

 

How long can a cat live?

15 years perhaps. Or even up to 20 years for some really lucky ones. 

But have you ever heard of a cat that has lived for over 80 years and still shows no single sign of dying, or even aging?

Probably not. 

Well now, here is a story for you, my dear audience, a story about a black cat named  "Sissel". And you know what? 

That cat was me. 


	2. THE STORY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter mainly contains re-iteration of the original game plot, from the cat Sissel's perspective. And I've added certain details.

The story began in 1969. 

I'd like to recite all the events in chronicle order, which would be easier for me to retell, and also easier for you to comprehend. The first part of this story is not entirely based on my own experience; some part of it was passed on to me from a dear old friend. This friend, a smart little doggie with the name "Missile", was one of the major role players in all that had happened, and had a very adorable, respectable and reliable character. So my dear audience, I have every reason to convince you that the story to be told here is entirely real, every line and every word of it. Nothing was made up, nothing exaggerated, and nothing distorted. We, cats and dogs, are not like humans. We don't lie, unless we really have to.

 

**1**

Now let's get back to the year 1969, Washington D.C., U.S.A. or to be more precise, the Pentagon in the Arlington County southwest of Washington D.C. 

It was only two years after the Department of Defense (DOD) initiated a project to study appropriate security control methods for computer systems, and it was the same year when the so-called "ARPANET" (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network)[1], the ancestor of the now well-known "INTERNET", was first built and put into operation. Of course the DOD did not build those expensive machines for fun, but rather for military purposes. At the same time, they also had a highly special and confidential system built particularly for the organization and protection of the so-called "national secrets", whatever those secrets were. The development of this system was pioneered by a team of computer geniuses, one of whom was called "Yomiel", a talented systems engineer and one of the best in the industry.

You would certainly be awe-struck if you met Yomiel in person. He was tall and thin, always wearing a black undershirt, a white necktie, a white belt, a pair of white shoes, a strikingly RED jacket and a pair of pants with exactly the same bright color. What's more, he wore apair of black SUNGLASSES, even at night! Well, I guess I could somehow understand that certain people do have an extremely strong addiction to a particular color (RED in the case for our Mr. Yomiel), and the sunglasses could possibly be explained by the special need of computer scientists to protect their eyes. However, what was one supposed to make of his hair? His golden hair, I was not sure as to whether the color was natural or not, stood on the top of his head, pointing proudly upward and coming close together at the tip forming a taper. To best describe that hairstyle, I would say that it closely resembled a clown's or a witch's pointed hat without the rim. Just imagine! How much hair gel he had to use every day in order to keep his hair that way, and how expensive it would be?! So I guess the IT industry really paid well. 

Oh, I think I got a little carried away. Many apologies. Please do forgive an old cat like me. Being alive for more than 80 years is not really a good thing for a cat. So let's get back to Yomiel and the DOD and the computer systems and the so-called "national secrets". 

It was all those stupid "national secrets" that started the chain reactions, like the opening of a Pandora's box.

 

**2**

The beginning of the tragedy was in October 1969, when Yomiel was suspected to be a spy who had stolen certain "national secrets" and sold them to the Soviet Union. He was taken into custody and interrogated by a police named Cabanela.

Yomiel was, of course, innocent. But that was not what the police thought, at least, not what Inspector Cabanela thought. For Yomiel, it was a question of freedom or life imprisonment; for Cabanela, however, it was a question of promotion or … well, lagging behind while his colleagues climbed up the ladder. That was why Cabanela pushed Yomiel so hard, threatening him, cornering him, leaving him neither hope nor choice, in order to make him confess, and confess fast. Oh, human could be so vulgar, so selfish, and so mean!

Despair, that was what drove Yomiel mad and finally destroyed him. 

Left alone in the interrogation room, with all hope and sanity gone, with the thought that he would never be able to see the sunshine, to walk freely in the open air, to talk gaily with his family and friends, and to ask Sissel, his girlfriend, finally for her hand in marriage, Yomiel was like a trapped beast, and a dangerous one. Then he saw something --- a revolver, Cabanela's revolver, carelessly left on the desk, buried in a pile of papers. He saw it as his chance, his only one. 

He picked up the revolver and made a break for it. 

He fled into a park not far from the detention center, chased by another police detective called Jowd. 

Jowd and Cabanela had been good friends since high school, both being young and ambitious then. During their study in the police school, they were taught to fulfill their duties, to do their jobs, to arrest all the criminals, to force them into confession, and to pull the trigger whenever necessary. They had not experienced much about life. If they had, they would have learned about much more important things such as consideration for others, and self-restraint. 

But back then, they had neither. 

As Jowd ran after Yomiel into the park, with his pistol in hand, he was determined to shoot, no matter what the circumstances were.

 

**3**

That evening, there were another two people, or should I say two lives, in the park. One was Lynne, a red-haired girl of about twelve, playing alone in the park, pretending to bake sweet potatoes. The other was me, a lonely, deserted kitten, wandering around aimlessly, praying that someone would notice me, and even offer a helping-hand to me.

Hunger or exhaustion are sufferings that are easily conquered. One can always find food somewhere, however cold and rotten it might be. One can always find shelter somehow, no matter how shabby and dirty it might be. But loneliness was a different feeling, and companion was impossible to find. I had almost lost hope because I felt that I was destined to be alone and abandoned all my life.

So there was I, hiding behind the grass, feeling sad and lonely where I witnessed the whole thing. 

Yomiel grabbed the little girl, took her hostage, and used her life to threaten Jowd. Jowd stopped a few yards away, but kept his gun pointed toward Yomiel. Then, there was a flash in the sky. A bright shooting star tore up the black veil of the night, and came unexpectedly towards the ground. 

It was a dazzling sight --- a huge burning fireball falling from high above, lighting up the heavens, roaring down to earth, and breaking up into small pieces along the way. You may even call it astonishingly beautiful, if it was not for the tragedy that followed.

The main part of the meteorite crashed into the ground, while a small piece flew towards the bulb of a street lamp, breaking the bulb causing the small piece of meteorite to change course right into Yomiel's back where it pierced his heart.

He was instantly killed by that piece of meteorite.

As his body fell to the ground, he let go of the girl. He knew he was dying, and at that moment, he saw something. It was a tiny black living thing, with a pair of green eyes looking at him, pleading for attention. He saw me. 

With all his remaining strength, Yomiel reached out his hand. 

He reached out for me.

Yet, it was not his hand that reached me, it was his soul.

 

**4**

Now, I am going to tell you something about this meteorite. But before that, I have to convince you that souls or spirits or ghosts, do exist. When a person dies, his soul would remain there for a certain period of time, less than one day, perhaps. After that, it would fade away, vaporizing into the air. 

The meteorite that hit the park and killed Yomiel, was no common meteorite, it gave out a certain type of radiation which could provide the spirits of the dead with special powers. To make it simple, if someone died within the range of the meteorite radiation, his soul could live on after his body died, and his soul might obtain special powers, such as possessing objects, manipulating objects, swapping objects, etc. The detailed abilities that a certain soul acquired could be different, depending on the person's own physical condition. The ability might also change over time. For example, Yomiel could only possess and manipulate non-living objects or small animals in the first six to seven years after his death but later on, he gradually acquired the ability to manipulate living people. These special abilities, we call them 'the power of the dead'.

Another extraordinary thing about Yomiel's death was his body was not dead after all. Yes, he was killed, that was true, but the small piece of radiating meteorite inside his dead body offered him something else beside the power of the dead. It offered him time, infinite time. 

One moment he was dead, and another his body was brought back to the time before his death. Therefore, his body kept shuttling between life and death, so that he was neither living nor dead. Back at the moment he was killed, in order to reach me, his soul left his body without even knowing it. His corpse was taken away by the police, but they were unable to perform autopsy on it because as soon as the skin was cut open, the wound healed immediately, leaving no trace of surgery at all. The police were shocked, and the corpse was locked away secretly.

Meanwhile, Yomiel's soul was living inside my body, along with my soul. 

His memory was temporarily lost, which was the usual case for all souls after death. Some could get their memories back quickly, while others might need quite a long time to recall who they really were. For Yomiel, the situation was really bad, he lost sight of his own corpse, and got trapped in the body of a cat, and for nearly three long years, he considered himself to be a cat. 

He thought he was me, and I was him.

And he was confused because he thought he was dead, but yet he was still living.

 

**5**

It was a strange feeling, two ghosts living inside one shell.

Having someone else looming around inside your head, it surely wasn't anything like two people sharing one dorm, but I was glad. Yes, I was really glad; I longed for a friend, a companion, and see what God granted me? --- A 'soul mate'. That should be the real meaning of the phrase 'soul mate', huh? 

We could not communicate with each other, because I did not have a "core".

If a person who has been dead once, and was somehow brought back to life again, his soul would turn into a bluish flame inside his body, which was only visible to ghosts. This was called a "core". Ghosts could communicate with cores by simply connecting with it, and the communication could proceed via exchanges of thoughts, without uttering a single word.

I had not been dead before. So I had no core, and was unable to talk to him. But I could somehow feel his thoughts. He could not see me, but he also could sense my presence.

There were lots of occasions when we had to fight for control over the body. Which direction to go? Where to turn? What food to eat? Where to stay for the night? We had lots of disagreements. He refused to climb the trees or anything high, since I would always feel like jumping down and he was kind of scared of it. He always tried to run away at the sight of a rat, while I was hoping to catch it. Yeah, we were fighting all the time. But it was nice. We were always together. We were one.

It was three years later when he suddenly remembered his true self. 

Then he left me.

It was a chill autumn evening. Wet raindrops woke me up and I realized that he was gone. 

So I was all by myself again --- a grown-up cat, a wanderer, and a shadow that no one had ever cast an eye upon.

 

I waited.

I stayed there and waited. 

I did not know why he was gone, where he had gone, or whether he was coming back. 

I simply stayed around that area and waited.

If he would come back some day, if he wished to find me again, he might return to that spot. So what I had to do was to make sure that when he did come back, I was there to be found. 

But I had my principles. Cats have their own dignity and principles. 

Dogs stay loyal, while cats stick to their principles.

So I set up a deadline. Three years at most, I would wait. Three years, to match the time that we had spent together. If he did not come back within three years' time, I would give up. I would then go on my own way, and forget about him. He would become a mere memory, and that would be the end of it. 

But within those three years, I would keep my word, and never leave the place. 

 

It was over a year later when he did come back. 

It was midnight, snow falling. Small flakes came down from the dark sky, and melted on the ground. I was curled up on top of a pile of wooden boxes underneath a roof and wide-awake as cats normally were during the nights. And then I saw him --- a tall man dress in red, wearing his golden hair high up like a cone on his head. He walked towards me. No words were spoken. He simply picked me up. I didn't know why, but I immediately recognized him. It was him, in his own body. 

He looked worn out and shattered. His eyes bore a flame of extreme agony, fury and hatred. Something bad must had happened, I could tell. I hoped I could ask him or soothe him, but he would not be able to understand. So I kept silent, and obedient.

He fed me, and put me inside a black suitcase he carried. Then he took me somewhere, I didn't know where. It was a long way off and it was a graveyard.

He stopped in front of a newly built gravestone, and let me out. I could not read the words carved on the stone, but there was a photo. It was a photo of a young woman, not very beautiful, but rather sweet and good-looking. 

Yomiel started talking, he might have been talking to me, or he might have been talking to himself, either way it didn't matter, he talked. I could only partially understand human language at that time, and I could not understand every word he was saying, but the main idea was clear, the dead woman was his fiancée. After spending three years mourning for her beloved one, she killed herself. When he regained his memory, stole his body back and went to see her, it was already too late. She was already dead. Everything was over.

Then he turned to look at me straight into my eyes, with his sunglasses on, of course, and he gave me something I never had before --- a name. He called me 'Sissel'. It was once the name of that woman lying buried underneath our feet.

 

**6**

So we were together again. Yomiel and Sissel. A man and a cat.

We were two walking shadows in the silent nights. When the city was sleeping, we were moving. When the city woke up, we went hiding. After all, he was an escaped corpse, and a rather conspicuous one as well. 

He talked to me often. I doubted if he was hoping me to understand. He was just lonely and distressed, and felt like talking to somebody. He talked about his work in DOD, his engagement with Sissel his girlfriend, his arrest, interrogation and escape. He also talked about his plans, plans for revenge.

I did not care much about the tangling love and hatred and whatever between human beings, so I would not comment on Yomiel's choice of revenge. To me, he was a companion, a friend, someone who was always by my side. He asked nothing of me, except my being there. He even did not ask me to listen when he was talking. So I made up my mind to be there for him, through all his plans, until the very end.

 

His first target was Inspector Jowd, who chased him into the park and tried to shoot him. Because of Jowd, he was dead. And because of his death, his fiancee killed herself, while he was not there in time to save her. So he wanted Jowd to suffer the same bitterness, the bitterness of watching his beloved woman die and unable to bring her back. The helplessness, the hopelessness, the pain, and the torture, he wanted to toss them back into Jowd's face. What's more, he wanted Jowd to experience false accusation as well, to be charged with a crime that you have never committed, to be suspected, to be called a liar, a criminal, a bastard, a villain, and in Jowd's case, a murderer. To Yomiel, Jowd was in fact, a murderer, a merciless, cold-blooded murderer. 

It was the birthday of Jowd's wife, Alma. Jowd's daughter Kamila, a girl of eight, had extremely delicate hands. She could build really sophisticated Rube Goldberg contraptions[2], and she built one for her mother's surprise party. But Yomiel tampered with the settings. He possessed an essential object, a Jupiter which was supposed to shoot an arrow to set off an artificial firecracker. Yomiel made it shoot in an opposite direction, and set off an antique gun that was hanging in a picture frame on the wall. The bullet shot Alma and killed her instantly.

There was no one else in the room except Alma, Kamila, and Jowd who came in after Alma was shot. Jowd was arrested for murdering his own wife. In order to protect his daughter, he rearranged the crime scene, hid away the antique gun in a music box, and confessed to be guilty. 

Death penalty was rarely used in this country, as human rights were always a hot issue. Jowd was sentenced to life imprisonment. Kamila became all alone, with Mother dead and Father in jail. She was taken care of by Lynne, who had followed Jowd's path into attending police school. Two years later, on Kamila's tenth birthday, Lynne gave Kamila a special present, a puppy. Together they named it 'Missile'. It could be the best birthday present Kamila ever received, and we will come back to this point later.

Meanwhile, Cabanela appeared to be completely changed. Rumors said that he had broken up with his old friend Jowd ever since the trial was over. Cabanela got obsessed with obtaining power and a 'perfect record' in his career. He climbed fast and soon became a famous figure in the police department, who held strong ties with the nation's important politicians.

 

But Yomiel's revenge was not over yet. He wanted Jowd dead, and he wanted Cabanela and Lynne dead as well. Moreover, he wanted revenge on this nation, a nation that treated him brutally and unfairly. Through the years, his abilities changed. He found that he was able to manipulate humans and force them into doing things according to his orders.That was an extremely handy and priceless ability. An idea dawned on Yomiel. He would now really become a traitor to the nation. He would sell his abilities to the nation's enemies and leak the top national secrets as he was unjustly accused of seven years ago.

He got in contact with an international terroristic organization. The name of that organization, I was not really sure of. But I think their headquarter was in the Middle East, and they were extremely anti-America. 

Yomiel made a deal with them. He was going to help the terrorists with his power. In return, besides helping to ensure the execution of Jowd, the terrorists were going to give Yomiel a new identity, and get him out of this land that he loathed so that he could again walk beneath the sun like any other man. 

He longed for a new life.

 

**7**

When the story came to this stage, things got really complicated due to a series of unexpected events and mistakes. 

Yomiel first manipulated the Minister of Law into signing a document to pass a death penalty to Jowd. He then asked the terrorists to kidnap the Minister's daughter to threaten him into enforcing the execution. 

Meanwhile, Yomiel made a phone call to Lynne and arranged a meeting with her in a deserted waste yard. Whenshe showed up, he manipulated her into shooting his own body. However, the first shot missed Yomiel and went directly through the suitcase he was carrying. In fact, I was unfortunately inside that suitcase, and was shot dead instantly, without anyone noticing, not even Yomiel. As soon as the second shot was fired, he possessed my body, leapt out of the suitcase and left the crime scene. He didn't realize that I was already dead. THAT was the first incident out of Yomiel's expectation. He would never have wanted me dead. 

Reality always deviates from what you expected. That's a rule of life.

According to Yomiel's plan, the security camera in the waste yard would capture the moment when Lynne 'killed' a 'man'. Police would be summoned and the Chief Police Inspector Cabanela would surely come to the scene, because the suspect was his dearest sweet little girl 'Lovely Lynne'. Cabanela would watch the video record, and forced to arrest his beloved 'Lovely Lynne'  with his own hands. He would also have to examine the dead body --- the body of a man that was supposed to be already dead for ten years, a man who had been wronged and mistreated by the government, a man whose innocence was claimed six month after his body became cold, and a man whose fiancée had been driven into suicide due to the mischief of the police. Yomiel thought it would be like a nightmare turning real for Cabanela. And after that, he would repossess his own body, and shoot both Cabanela and Lynne dead. 

However, a second surprise immediately followed. The terroristic organization sent a hit man named Zigo to the waste yard, and killed Lynne. And when Cabanela came to the spot, he was faced with two murders instead of one. Yomiel was not quite happy with this arrangement at first. But when Zigo told him that it was for the safety of both parties that all people related to the meteorite Temsik to be eliminated, Yomiel took it for granted. Well, I have to say here that, even after all those ten years in the darkness, Yomiel was still the simple and naïve young man he used to be, always acting on impulse.

After killing Cabanela, he followed Zigo to Kamila's house. Yomiel wanted to fetch the music box in which Jowd had hidden the antique gun. That was a piece of evidence showing the innocence of Jowd, and Yomiel wanted it destroyed. Zigo, on the other hand, was following the organization's order to kill Kamila. When Zigo pointed his gun at the girl, Missile our faithful dog jumped at him, trying to protect his beloved princess. But the bullet got him in the air. He fell down and died. Kamila was killed by a second shot only a few minutes later.

 

Yomiel's revenge was supposed to end here.

However, at this point, a third extraordinary incident had already occurred. It was something completely out of the calculation of either Yomiel or the terrorists. That fact was, Missile fell down on to the floor at Yomiel's feet, and died there, only over a meter away from that piece of radiating Temsik inside Yomiel's body! 

This single fact became such a huge flaw in Yomiel's plan of revenge that it later changed the fates of all of us.

 

When Missile regained conscious, he found himself dead. He also found his princess Kamila dead. Imagine how heartbroken he was. But then he realized something else. He realized that he had special powers, the ghost tricks, although he had no idea how he obtained them at all. He found out that he could move between objects, swap two objects with similar shapes, and turn back time to several minutes before someone's death. Then he decided to save Kamila. 

He did it again and again, going back to minutes before Kamila's death, trying out various methods to prevent her from being killed. But he never succeeded. His ghost tricks were so limited that he could find no way to save her. All that he had done was to replay the death of his master over and over again before his own eyes, painful as it was.

Then he decided that if he could not save Kamila in that very room, he might find some other way to change the whole situation. He followed Yomiel. 

He was led to a submarine, a temporary headquarter of the terrorists. There he watched and listened, and he understood the deal between Yomiel and the terrorists as well as all that had happened. There, he witnessed the tragic ending of Yomiel's revenge. 

Yomiel was used and betrayed. Like I said, he was still a simple and naïve man after all. The terrorist organization never really wanted to cooperate with him. Instead, they had carried out some investigation on Temsik and the 'power of the dead' themselves, and had arrived at the conclusion that all they needed was that piece of meteorite inside Yomiel's body. They tricked Yomiel's ghost out of his body, and took that meteorite out of the corpse using a mechanic arm. Then they left in an emergency escape capsule with the meteorite, and sent a torpedo to sink the submarine.

They were left alone in that submarine, the ghosts of Missile and Yomiel, along with Yomiel's dead body. With the Temsik gone, Yomiel's body was no longer immortal. It became a normal corpse.

The submarine was hit by the torpedo, and all electricity had gone out. Darkness surrounded them. They could feel the submarine sinking, slowly and silently into the deep ocean. They were cut out from the rest of the world. And they would be buried in the ocean floor, unable to reach anyone, let alone to be rescued. Worse still, they ghosts would live on, with a solitary and endless eternity waiting ahead. They were trapped.

At that moment, the smart dog Missile figured out the only thing he could do in order to get out of that hopeless condition. He had to use Yomiel's corpse to turn back time, back to ten years before when Yomiel was about to be killed by that meteorite.

If he could prevent that death, Missile thought, he might be able to save Miss Kamila's life.

 

**8**

Yet again, he failed.

He was unable to save the life of this man named Yomiel, as he had been unable to save his princess Kamila. 

What could he do? Poor little doggie. He had traveled so far both in space and time, and yet couldn't change anything at all. I bet anyone else in his place would have given up hope, but our little doggie pursued.

He followed Yomiel's soul all the way round. He watched, listened and waited. 

For five years, he waited. He witnessed the death of Kamila's mother, and he could do nothing about it.

For another five years, he waited. And finally, he came to the waste yard on the night Yomiel and Lynne arranged to meet. He saw my death. 

It was not the first time that he saw me, for he had already seen me after Yomiel's death and had been following me around for quite a long time. But it was the first time that he saw my ghost. And it was also the first time that we could talk to each other. As living creatures, cats and dogs cannot communicate, while as ghosts, the language barrier vanished. 

 

The appearance of my ghost, sent a fresh sparkle of hope into Missile's heart.

Like Missile, I died within a small distance from the Temsik inside Yomiel's body as well. And I had my own special abilities. I could possess objects and manipulate them, I could wind back time to four minutes before someone's death, and I could travel from one place to another through telephone lines. Missile saw through my powers and immediately realized that I was the one special partner that he had been seeking so long. He desperately needed my help. So he talked to me and tried to convince me into helping him, in the form of an old lamp. 

But I had my own little problem. 

I didn't remember who I was or to be more precise, I got the wrong impression of what I was.

The situation for me was kind of similar to the situation for Yomiel ten years back in time. My own body had 'walked' way, possessed by Yomiel's soul. And the only dead body in sight was that of Yomiel's. It was only natural for me to consider it to be my corpse. So I thought I was a human being. But I couldn't recall anything else. And, more importantly, I did not know why I was killed.

There is a famous saying that 'Curiosity kills the cat'. Although curiosity was certainly not the reason I got killed, but it is true that cats are curious animals. I wanted to find out who I was and why I was killed and who was the bastard that killed me. 

 

Then I witnessed the death of Lynne. She was shot by the killer Zigo. Missile, or should I just say the lamp, asked me to save her. I did what I was asked to do. I saved Lynne. 

Here I would like to point out the difference between Missile and myself. Missile, as you know, did everything out of loyalty. That is to say, he did everything, and would do anything to bring his master Kamila back to life. That was, as I would say, blind loyalty. Sometimes I really wonder whether he would have chosen to kill someone innocent if it could bring Miss Kamila back into this world. 

But we cats, we have dignity. Dignity and independence are qualities that we treasured most. We might be raised, fed, adopted, and we might grow attached to somebody, but we would never, ever belong to anyone. We always belong only to ourselves. We do things according to our own principles, like I had already said before. And the reason why I agreed in saving Lynne's life was my principle of 'chivalry'. It was totally against my principle of chivalry to watch a helpless woman die. That was why I helped and I succeeded.

But after that, when Missile the lamp tried to talk me into helping him with those other things, I refused him. I had already done my duty in saving a young woman's life. My mission was completed. I told him that I had my own business to take care of and wouldn't like to nose around other people's affairs. So I left, swift as a wind, through a telephone line.

So that was what Missile got after ten years of waiting --- nothing, nothing at all. All efforts wasted. All hope vanished. Ten years. "Ten years was much too long for a dog." That was what he said to me later. 

And you know what he did? He repeated what he had done in the last round and followed Yomiel into the submarine. Then he went back once more to ten years back when Yomiel got killed. Stupid, isn't it? Or should we say stubborn or pig-headed? After waiting ten years in vain, he deliberately chose to do it all over again, to waste another ten years for nothing? No one would do a thing like that! No human beings, nor cat, but a dog? Perhaps yes. Their obstinate loyalty would drive them into doing all kinds of crazy things. Ah, you can never really understand dogs, let alone go alone with their views.

But anyway, he did it again.

 

**9**

Another ten years passed. We arrived again at the same night when Yomiel and Lynne met in the waste yard. 

Once more, I was shot dead.

Once more, I regained consciousness, and took myself as the man.

Once more, I witnessed Lynne's death.

Once more, I saved her.

And once more, I was approached by an old talking lamp. He called himself "Ray".

But this time, he told me something different. He said that my spirit would disappear at dawn, and I had only one night to find out my true identity. He also told me that since I came out to meet this girl, the key to solving the mystery of my death must lie in her hands, and that was why I had to follow her and try to find out all the answers. I was persuaded.

Whenever I came back to think about what he said to me, half of it a lie, the other half a deliberate concealment of his knowledge about my true identity, I could not help feeling furious and ashamed. I, a cat who had lived for over ten years and had seen so much of life, was tricked and deceived by a small doggie. Well, even though he truly had gained much experience of life in those twenty years of waiting, he was still a dog seven years younger than me and he outwitted me. What a shame it was! The greatest shame in my life!

 

That night, I did a whole lot of things. I saved the lives of a whole bunch of people. 

I saved Lynne's life no less than five times under different situations. She seemed to run into deep waters all the time, and I was really amazed by her ability to get herself killed again and again.

I saved Jowd from his death execution and got him out of jail, although he was soon re-arrested by Cabanela. 

I saved the Minister of Law from dying of a sudden heart attack, and prevented him from signing a document to reinforce the execution of Jowd.

I also saved Kamila and Missile from being killed by a hit man, but later Missile got killed again by a motorcycle, while Kamila was mistaken to be the daughter of the Minister and was kidnapped. 

The funny thing was that Missile got killed in Temsik Park, at the spot where meteorite fragments remain buried in the ground. Once more, he was granted with special powers. Later, we got together, cooperated, and saved the lives of more people.

Together we saved a wanderer in Temsik Park from being struck to death by a huge stone Mino.

Together we saved an old strange scientist from a severe explosion, who had been studying Temsik and 'the power of the dead' for several years.

Together we saved Cabanela from being shot by Yomiel. 

Through all those events, I learned a name "Sissel", and I had a feeling that it belonged to me. But I stilled couldn't remember anything else. I had also forgotten a whole lot of other things. For example, I forgot how to read. At least, that was what I thought at that time. Worse still, I found that the dead body that I assumed to be me turned out to be alive once more, and did not bore the name "Sissel". If that man was someone else, then who in the world was I supposed to be?

Bearing these disturbing questions in mind, I finally got onto the submarine, together with Missile.

This time, besides Yomiel, there were more guests on board. There was Kamila, who was kidnapped, Lynne and Jowd, who had followed the terroriests to this place. 

Here, we saved Lynne's life two more times. Once she was shot by Kamila, who was being manipulated by Yomiel. The other time she was drowned.

But, like I said before, these changes were too small to thoroughly avert people's fates. They were destined to die in this time line, and whatever we do, we could only postpone their death to a later time. And then, the time had come.

 

The head of the terrorists took the Temsik out of Yomiel's body and left. A torpedo hit the submarine, and it went sinking, with three dead ghosts and three living people in it. We were all sinking, slowly and silently into the deep ocean, surrounded by complete darkness, cut out from the rest of the world, our voices muffled, and our future dim.

It was then that Yomiel started talking about himself, about what had happened to him, why he had wanted this revenge and how he longed for a normal life. It was a story that I had already known so well, but it sounded so much sadder down there in the sinking submarine.

Everyone listened. And after he finished, silence fell. A moment later, the silence was broken by Lynne. She said genteelly: "I think I can understand your feelings, Mr. Yomiel. Walking in the darkness all alone, it must be like sinking deep into the ocean trapped in a small cabin of solitude, being sentenced to eternal exile. "

Yomiel didn't respond, but I felt the tension loosen, the atmosphere changing. That was when you come back to think about it, the first time he was spoken to kindly by another human being in ten long years. And I think, that was what he had really been seeking all the time, understanding and comfort from one of his kind.

Well, I am not so good at describing gentle feelings between human beings. I would get back to the facts. Then, we decided to travel back in time once more, Missile and me, and Yomiel too, who proposed to join. He said he wanted to help, and he said that his revenge was over. So we rewound time, and we got back to the park again.

Working together, Missile and I succeeded in changing the track of the meteorite so that it would not hit Yomiel; then we succeeded in substituting the bullet that Jowd shot at Yomiel by a sweet potato of similar shape. Yomiel's fate was changed, yet we were faced with another serious condition --- a huge stone Mino that we had moved into midair in order to block the path of the meteorite fragment was falling down, and it would soon smashed on top of Lynne! It would be disastrous if not for Yomiel's ghost. He possessed and manipulated his own self ten years before, rushing towards little Lynne and pushing her aside. Lynne had a narrow escape, while Yomiel himself was crushed underneath the Mino.

 

Thank God he was not dead. Nor was he handicapped. It turned out to be a happy ending for nearly every one of us, at least the best ending we could dream of. Lynne was saved and followed Jowd's path into becoming a police detective. Jowd spotted me in the park that night and adopted me. In the following years I lived as a family member together with Jowd, his wife Alma and their daughter Kamila. Both Lynne and Cabanela came to visit often. 

Cabanela soon became the chief inspector in the police department, and he was especially keen on helping Lynne with her career. I always could not shake off the feeling that Cabanela had a special kind of feeling towards this little clumsy girl who kept getting herself into different sorts of trouble. Anyway, at least she managed not to get killed again. 

Yomiel, on the other hand, was cleared of the suspicion of being a spy a few months later. He also recovered completely from that accident. However, he was charged with the crimes of jail breaking and taking Lynne custody, and had to serve a ten-year imprisonment. But he was satisfied with it, and he said that he deserved it for what he had done. His fiancée Sissel came to visit him every week, and she lived on.  

Finally, several years later, Lynne came to Kamila's birthday party and brought a present with her. It was "Missile".

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. In October 1967, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (now the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) of the Department of Defense (DOD) organized a task force to study and recommend appropriate computer security safeguards that would protect classified information in multi-access, resource-sharing computer systems, the result of which was later published in 1970 as The Security Controls For Computer Systems, and was classified as confidential at that time. In 1975, however, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency declassified it. 
> 
> 2\. A Rube Goldberg machine, contraption, invention, device, or apparatus is a deliberately over-engineered or overdone machine that performs a very simple task in a very complex fashion, usually including a chain reaction. The expression is named after American cartoonist and inventor Rube Goldberg (1883-1970).


	3. MY STORY

That was where THE story ended. But that was just where MY story started.

It's an extremely long one, for sure.

That night, all our fates changed. The changes were so dramatic, and so complete, which was nothing like the subtle adjustments that I had performed earlier that night trying to save this person's life or another's. Those small ghost tricks, when I came back to think about them, only succeeded in delaying these peoples' death, instead of really preventing them. The last resort tried by Yomiel, Missile and me together, trying to change the track of the meteorite, was different. It changed everything, wiping out all the incidents that would have occurred if Yomiel was hit by the meteorite, and changed the destiny of every one of us, or maybe even the future of the whole world to a completely different 'timeline'. 

The word 'timeline' is borrowed from a 21th century Japanese physicist named Rintaro Okabe, who was a specialist in time travel and called himself 'the Mad Scientist'[3]. Although there were no single experimental evidence, he claimed that time is made up of infinite amount of possibilities, or routes. These routes run parallel, and branch at certain time points. According to his theory, in reality we are living in just one of the routes, and traveling back to the past to change the future means switching between them. However, if the changes were minor, you are simply jumping between nearby routes which lead to an essentially similar final destiny. These routes can therefore be considered as a bundle and be called the timeline. In order to change the fate completely, the changes you made during a time travel have to be large enough to switch from one timeline to another. In our case, that final resort brought us from an alpha timeline into a beta timeline.

The piece of meteorite missed Yomiel. 

It hit me, instead.

 

**1**

You would never understand the feeling if you have not experienced it. Only after I myself got that piece of stone inside my body did I understand how Yomiel had felt in those ten years. The meteorite, like I have already said, offered me not only special abilities, but also infinite time.

So I was killed by the meteorite, but it continuously brought me back to the second before my death. So there I was, not dead, not alive either, trapped between life and death, between heaven and earth, trapped in time itself. 

I was a little black kitten then, and I still have look like a small black kitten now. No matter how my knowledge about life increases, my appearance remained the same. No matter how much I long to have normal relationships, and no matter how I wished to grow and age and die like all other cats in this world, I simply couldn't. 

Human treated me as a kitten. Cats won't listen to my story. They think I was mad or just making things up to attract attention. So I was alone in this world. What could you make of all those infinite time when you are all alone in this world, when you are merely a walking shadow, or worse than a shadow?

 

You would argue that I was not alone. You would say that I had all those friends who went through that nightmare together. At first, I thought so, too. That could ease the solitude. But I was wrong. Something unexpected had happened. 

Remember that I said after we changed Yomiel's fate ten years ago, we switched the timeline from alpha to beta? That meant that EVERTHING was wiped out, completely! There would be no revenge, and nobody would have died in the first place, and neither I nor Missile would have needed to save them. That part of history, or should we call it 'future', was erased --- not from my brain, not from Yomiel's, for he was the last person being saved, but from the memories of all the others. Lynne, Kamila, Jowd, Cabanela, and even Missile, to them, they had never died, thus never been saved. When we returned to 1979, ten years after the meteorite struck the park, their memories were wiped out, and their cores, were gone.

Now you begin to get a grasp of the situation, right? Yes, I was adopted by Jowd. They raised me, fed me and provided me with a home. But that's just it. I was an adopted kitten, and that's all. 

They didn't remember anything.

They were happy together --- the family, the three of them, Jowd, his wife, and their daughter Kamila. I could not talk with them. Communication with human was impossible if no cores were present. All I could do was to listen. After all those years with Yomiel in the other timeline, I could at least grasp the essentials of human tongue. 

So I listened, and I watched. Neither Jowd nor Kamila showed any sign of remembering all that could have happened. They sincerely believed that they had been living in this timeline ever since the beginning. And, they don' t know who I was, nor did they know that I was actually dead. They named me Antonio, which further backed up my suspicion that they had forgotten everything.

They didn't even notice my abnormalities, except sweet little Kamila. Eight years after I was adopted, when she was a girl of twelve, she exclaimed excitedly on her birthday: "Isn't it extraordinary? Antony has not grown a bit ever since he came to our family!" 

Dear sweet smart little girl, you were so close to the cruel truth. Just a few steps further and you might be the youngest scientist in history to make a breathtaking discovery which had the power of ruining the whole world. But her high spirits were brought down by an uninterested and unimaginative remark of her father. Inspector Jowd replied: "Perhaps Antonio is one of those species that keep their small size all through life.”

I cursed him, I wanted to scratch him and bite him but it was Kamila's birthday and I did not want to spoil her fun.

Two other people came to the birthday party that night, Lynne and Cabanela.

Lynne often came to visit Jowd's family after that incident. She also went to the prison to visit Yomiel, who risked his own life to protect her at the last minute. She had just been admitted into the police school that year, and was determined to become a police inspector.

And that night, I met Missile. Although it was certainly not our first meeting, but it was our first formal meeting, as a cat and a dog. 

 

**2**

Missile was given to Kamila as a birthday present by Lynne. And he was, well, only a one-month-old puppy then.

Missile was cute as always, full of curiosity and energy, good tempered and noisy. He wriggled his tail, and barked at everything.

And he didn't seem to recognize me, either. How could I blame him? He was only one month old!

But it was a shock to me, really a shock. 

Well, I was a cat. I am a cat. I will always be a cat. 

Cats don't usually make friends with dogs, especially such an energetic one as Missile. They make too much noise! And we cats prefer quietness. Also, cats are extremely clever and proud animals and they don't like being outwitted. Certainly I held a grudge against the little doggie that outwitted me and cheated me into all those troublesome events, and thanks to him, I got shot by that piece of meteorite and got trapped in this sad situation and him, Missile the dog, should hold the greatest responsibility for my tragedy! But look! He has forgotten every bit of it, and is lively, happily and naively living like a normal innocent dog!

Oh, how unfair!

And worse still, I could not even understand his language! Nor could he understand mine!

It was not only unfair. It was tragic.

It was not tragic. It was disastrous.

There seemed to be an enormous language barrier between cats and dogs, much, much greater than the gap between cats and human. There seemed no way to cross over. Human languages have much variability, and are easy to learn. But dog language, oh God help me, is comprised of only one single syllable. It was either bark once, bark twice, or bark three times, or bark continuously for a long period of time, like what Missile kept doing all the time.

So you see, I was left alone after all. This little doggie had used me and then abandoned me. 

 

The only person that I could still talk to was Yomiel. So sometimes I sneaked out of the house and went to the prison to visit him. He looked happy, extremely happy for a prisoner. We would talk for a while. I would tell him of the things happened in Jowd's house, things happened in the streets, and things happened throughout the world which I learned from the TV. Then he would talk about his fiancée,  wearing the expression of a happy and satisfied man. And then I understood something: I was no longer the 'Sissel' I once meant to him; he had his own 'Sissel', and he didn't need me anymore.

I was, in fact, replaced by the original 'Sissel' who had come back to life.

So I went to see him less often. Until later, I never went to see him anymore. 

Ten years later, I heard that he finished serving his sentence and became a free man once more. I did not go to see him. Because I knew he would be met by his Sissel, the real one.

 

I am not complaining, there was nothing to complain about. Everyone had their own life, their own pursuit, and their own beloved one. I should have known it from the very beginning. I was simply an outsider, a spectator, and was chosen to record all these events. So I was a destined to be a lone soul.

It was really not very painful, and it was really not too bad for a cat.

 

**3**

Please allow me to go quickly through a few years' time, since nothing out of the ordinary happened during those years. Everyone lived happily and everything went smoothly. Missile grew fast. And as he grew in size, his affection towards Miss Kamila also got deeper day by day. 

He followed her out into the street every morning when she left for school, and he impatiently waited at the doorstep every evening for her return. And as soon as he saw her violet hair came dancing from the other end of the street, he would rush out like mad and start barking enthusiastically. He started doing it when Kamila was in elementary school, he kept doing it when Kamila went to middle school, and he was still kept at it when Kamila got into high school.

He was also a brave soldier, that little doggie. He once knocked over a eleven-year-old boy who tried to buy Kamila an ice cream, twice tore off the shoes of a fourteen-year-old boy who escorted Kamila back home, thrice tried to bite off the fingers of a seventeen-year-old boy who came waiting outside the door on weekend afternoons, and God knows how many times he barked fiercely to frighten off different sorts of boys who appeared by Kamila's side. He was a clever one, this little doggie. Really! He could easily tell enemies from friends by a dog's instinct, for he never attacked a girl. Not even once!

I enjoyed lying on the roof watching the scene: furious little Missile versus Miss Kamila's boyfriends. Kamila would try to sooth Missile, and then she would apologize to the boy who was being threatened or attacked. Some boys simply disappeared after a single encounter with Missile, others held on for a while, but none lasted. 

 

Finally came the time when Kamila finished high school and was about to enter college. She had always been a very smart and hard-working girl. Remember the complicated Rube Goldberg contraptions she built with her own hands? She was really good at mechanics and all that sort of things. And she was admitted to MIT, department of physics. 

Who wouldn't know of MIT? Even a cat like me knew it. Only the smartest students could get the chance to go there. Jowd and Alma were surely proud and happy. Everyone was happy, I think, except Missile. Missile was kind of happy for Kamila, but sad for himself. For MIT was in Massachusetts, miles and miles away from the Arlington County. The huge distance was going to separate him from his beloved princess. She would leave home, and would only come back once a year for Christmas. 

I did not know much about her life at MIT, since I was not there with her. From what she told us every year at the family Christmas dinner, she was happy and doing quite well. She talked gaily about her school life --- the courses she took, the teachers she liked and disliked, the friends she had, the advance research fields she was interested in --- things that seemed so far away from the small county where we stayed behind. 

Kamila left as an innocent teenage girl, and came back as a charming and intellectual young woman. I would not say that she changed much --- she was still the sweet girl she used to be --- but there was something different, some invisible barrier that separated her from us. It was like she had gone into a completely different new world, and we were left behind. 

When I said 'we', it was actually Missile that I referred to. He was no longer a puppy or a doggie any more. He was almost ten years old, old enough to be a grandpa dog. An old dog, Missile was. Though optimism and cheerfulness had not left him, energy had. He seldom barked loudly ever since Kamila left for college in 1983, and his eyes were frequently painted with a color of sadness. Even when Kamila was home on Christmas or Thanksgiving, Missile still kept silent. He would lie under her feet, wiggling his tail slowly, watching his beautiful princess with a pair of large, faithful and sad brown eyes. He was still her beloved Missile, but she was beyond his reach now. 

In 1987, after Kamila's graduated, she came home with a young man, her classmate, and her boyfriend. I don't recall his name, but I remember him as a tall, handsome and amiable person. Old Missile greeted him courteously; no barking, no biting, no hostility or whatever this time. Perhaps it was simply because of age. Perhaps four years of visible and invisible separation forced Missile to admit there are barriers that could not be crossed or perhaps time had finally revealed to him that love takes on different shapes, and to love does not mean to exclusively possess. Love, sometimes means letting go.

 

**4**

Missile did let go. Five months after Kamila went back to MIT to continue study as a graduate student, Missile's life came to an end. 

He passed away during sleep on a cold winter morning. We found him curled up near the doorstep as always. It was such a peaceful and tranquil sight that you would almost think he was simply trapped in a deep dream. But he wouldn't wake up.

Funny it was, maybe sarcastic. I could rewind time to go back to minutes before his death as many times as I wanted to, but there was not a single thing in this world for me to do. I might be able to save other's life if it was taken by an accident, but I was helpless facing the strength of time. I couldn't save Missile. He died a natural death. 

Funnier still, I could talk with him now. For ten years, we had not been able to understand each other, but once he died, communication was no longer a problem. 

Then I asked him the question I had wanted to ask for ten long years.

"Do you remember?" I asked him.

"Remember what?" answered him.

Ha! So I had been right all the time. He didn't remember a thing! All the memories had been erased. All the past acquaintance and friendship between a dog and a cat had vanished. He was the Missile I knew, but not the Missile who knew me.

He looked at me innocently and asked: "Why? What is it?"

After a moment's thinking, he added: "How can you talk to me? Are you dead too?"

"Yes and no." I replied. 

Then I started telling him the whole story all over again. It was a complicated situation. I was repeating the fantastic story to him, and that story itself contains a story that was told by another 'him' to me. 

When I finished, he considered for a minute and commented slowly: "So, according to what you said, I have been existing for over 30 years now."

"In a way, yes." I couldn't help marveling at the swiftness he grasped the whole idea. He was exceptionally smart after all.

Then he laughed.

And then he stopped laughing and said: "Thirty years is extremely long for a dog."

"But you remember nothing." I teased.

"Well, memories like playing tricks." He smiled, "At least I'm glad Miss Kamila is safe and sound. Although it's a pity I cannot live long enough to see her get married and have children." There was a flash of grief in his eyes. He went on: "Anyway, my time has come, and I have no regrets. Antony, or Sissel, whatever your name is, I have to thank you for all you've done. Now I understand why I've always felt like you were an old friend.” He looked at me in the eye.

"Easy for you to say so now." I mumbled reluctantly.

He laughed again. At that moment I realized that time had fled and his spirit started to become obscure.

"Farewell, my friend."

That was the last thing I heard him say. The next moment, he was gone forever.

 

Missile was buried in the backyard two days later. The family held a small funeral for him. 

Kamila asked for a leave and flew all the way back home to take a last look at him. I had never seen her like this before. She knelt by Missile's dead body for over an hour or two, crying her heart out. And as his body was lowered into the ground, she silently followed it with her swollen eyes. 

Only later I understood that in order to attend Missile's funeral, Kamila canceled a pre-arranged visit to her boyfriend's home. This incident, even if it was not the main reason, acted as a trigger that finally blew up their relation. But that is something beyond my understanding, and I'd rather not talk about it here.

 

**5**

With Missile gone, and Kamila back to MIT to her study, the house became so empty. The only good news was that Lynne had done some really good jobs in investigating a few important cases and got promoted, and in 1988 she married Cabanela, Chief of Police, also her supervisor. But what has that to do with me?

The life at Jowd's house gradually became insufferably dull to me. I thought I'd need some fresh air, some freedom, some wandering around, and some solitude. So I left.

Back in 20 years of time, I hated being alone and longed for a family. Now I had a home, and I started craving for freedom. Perhaps this is just what life is about --- throwing away what you have, and reaching out for things that you don't have. 

Dilemma, that's another name of life.

 

I left on a starry night. I walked quietly in the county, along the streets, over the roofs, across the railways, through the gardens …… I saw the stars shining above me. I heard the wind blowing by my ears. I smelled the scent of summer flowers in the air. I felt that I had the whole world entirely to myself. 

No, not exactly the whole world. I had not even left Arlington.

Suddenly, a new craze got hold of me. I wanted to see the world.

For the next ten years, I traveled. I had no intention of going back, so I traveled on foot, by bus, and by train. I journeyed from county to county, from town to town, from city to city. I met various people, and I talked to various people --- after they died.

You wouldn't possibly imagine how many ways people could die.

People died of disease. Heartattack, stroke, cancer, diabetes, common flue, pneumonia, intestinal infection, Alzheimer's, AIDS …… Some were killed in an instant, while others suffered from years of torture. Some died out in the cold, in agony and poverty, with no money for medical treatment; while others died in luxurious home with world's top private doctors and first class medical aid, and yet could not be saved. 

People died of accidents, all kinds of accidents. Some were knocked over by cars, and some drove their own cars into others. Some were burned in fire, and some suffocated in gas leakage. Some fell off the subway escalator when it suddenly stopped, and some were crushed underneath. Some were struck by lightning, and some by falling flower pots or other unexpected things. Some had too much drink and stumbled on the stairs, and some just happened to take the wrong medicine.

People died of love or hatred, alone or in chaos. Some were shot in gang fights, and others stabbed by bandits. Some were killed by kidnappers, and some silenced by poisons. Some were beaten to death by rivals, and others strangled by their lovers. Some died protecting their family, while others murdered their kins. Some took others' lives for money, and some took the lives of their own. 

Every death was unique. 

I knew it since I witnessed so many. 

Later I heard about a novel named "Eight million ways to die"[4], referring to the population of eight million in New York. Rumors say that the author simply read the daily newspapers on his way to work, and took notes of the local deaths, which occurred every day in all impossible ways. Those deaths were written down as they were, and comprised a critical portion of that famous novel. 

But the author only read them in the newspaper, while I witness the deaths with my own eyes.

 

You would surely ask whether I had tried to save them, at least some of them. Well, yes, I did at the very beginning. But you know something? A tiny change I made, would sometimes lead to drastic changes that were both unpredictable and uncontrollable. Once I tried to save a girl's life in a car accident. I never wanted to recall the details of that incident. In the end, I was not only unable to prevent her death, but I also triggered a series of events that resulted in a larger tragedy. Another five people died, and there was no way to change back. 

Ever since then, I've always remembered this: I was no God. I could neither alter the past nor foresee the future. I had neither right nor power to temper with time or to decide others' fate, at least, not when I was all alone by myself. 

I missed Missile.

 

**6**

In those ten years, I wandered around in all parts of the States, taking free rides in cars, buses and trains. And at last, when I started to feel tired, I decided to settle down. And I did, in New York city, in the year 1999.

New York was, and still is, the biggest and most crowded city in the States. I found it to be a particularly interesting place to observe all the impossibilities of human society. Walking alone on the streets in the night, leaping from roof to roof, sneaking through windows and doorways, and hiding under tables and sofas, I could be as silent as a shadow and as swift as wind. 

The places I liked most were the bars. There you could always witness some interesting scenes or overhear intriguing conversations. Please forgive me, but I enjoyed watching and listening. I never gossiped, as there was no one I could gossip with.

And one night, in one of those bars, I accidentally bumped into an old acquaintance. 

Yomiel.

There he was, sitting at the bar counter, wearing his red jacket and pants, his black tie and sunglasses, with his hair pointing into the air as always, and a glass of Scotch in his hand. 

Oh man, he looked much older. The color of his hair was no longer pure gold, but almost greyish white. I had not seen him for 15 years. As I said, I stopped visiting him in prison, and I did not go to meet him when he got out. I intentionally cut myself away from him. But that didn't mean I forgot all about him. I knew he married Sissel his fiancée four months after he became free, I knew they bought a small cottage in the suburb of Washington D.C., I knew Yomiel found a new job in a small computer company, I knew they had a boy one year later, and I also knew they moved away half a year after that. But I did not know where they headed for, and I never expected Yomiel to be in New York.

And there, 15 years after our last meeting, in a quiet bar in the mid-night of New York, sat Yomiel in the dim light, listening to the lone saxophone, and slowing sipping his Scotch. He looked not only older, but also weary and sad.

I cautiously approached, and greeted him.

 

"Hey man." I said.

Yomiel turned around and looked a little astonished.

"Hi," he smiled, paused a minute, and went on, "Sissel."

"They called me Antonio." I replied casually, "You can call me Antonio, too. No need to cause confusion between me and your wife Sissel."

"She's no longer my wife." He answered.

There was a moment of silence.

I fidgeted uneasily and then Yomiel added, "We got divorced, three years ago."

I was about to ask 'What happened?' when he continued, "She left me for someone else."

I thought to myself: 'Why? Howcome? She had waited ten years for you, and in those years of separation, her love remained unchanged. It simply doesn't make any sense for her to fall for another man when you two are finally together.'

I was still wondering whether it was appropriate to ask or not, and Yomiel said: "I hear your thoughts, man."

Right. I had nearly forgotten. It was impossible to hide your thoughts when communicating as ghosts. And of course, the rule also worked the other way around. An instant later, I heard the thoughts running through Yomiel's head, and saw the images of his past years flashing by.

Their married life started happily. Ten years of separation left no shadow in their relationship. She never blamed him for anything, but instead stood by his side through all those years. She was a pretty woman, and was never lacking suitors. But she was extremely firm on marrying Yomiel and refused all the other young men. She had loved him, truly, deeply and seriously. She got pregnant very soon and gavebirth to a boy. They named him Jeremy. Half a year later, they moved to New York. 

Yomiel had been a top systems engineer before he got arrested, but those ten years locked up behind the bars had prevented him from catching up with the breath-taking development of computer science. Yet, he was ambitious. He started to bury himself in learning all the new things as soon as he obtained ample access to the out-side world, and he came to New York preparing to start a computer company of his own. Sissel, his wife, worked part time since the income from Yomiel alone would not be able to raise the whole family. 

Their happy time together lasted for about two or three years, and then things began to change. After all, New York was not an easy place to make a living. The burden of life itself and Yomiel's own ambition for success diverted his attention from his wife and child. As if wanting to make up for the ten years he had lost, he plunged into excessive work and learning like crazy. It was okay at first. It could be understood, supported and tolerated. 

However, toleration always had its limit. As time ticked by, small conflicts turned into severe quarrels, and careless absentmindedness became a symbol of intentional neglect or deny. A forgotten birthday, a postponed date, an argument on dinner menu, a disagreement on child education, even a slight gesture or a sigh would evolve into a fierce fight or endless coldness. It was unimaginable and incomprehensible. The mutual understanding unharmed by ten years' of separation could be so vulnerable to a few years' company. It was not because love ceased. It was simply because they were not fit to be together. After another few years of struggle, his wife left him with another man, taking the child with her. That was the tragedy of their marriage, and that was how Yomiel ended up drinking alone in the bar at this late hour.

 

He looked at me, and laughed a weary laugh.

"Where have you been all these years? And how come you're here?" He asked silently.

"Traveling." I answered. Then I told him how I left Jowd's family, and how I went around all kinds of places, seeing all kinds of people and events.

He listened attentively. When I finished, he remarked thoughtfully, "So, you haven't seen them, Jowd's family I mean, for the past ten years." His voice was low and cracked, with a sorrowful sentiment that surprised me.

"That's right." I frowned, "Why? Something happened?"

He looked away and became silent. He remained silent for a long time, saying nothing, and thinking of nothing. There was just a complete blank in his mind. But I felt a rushing tide of complex bitterness.

"Come home with me." He spoke at last, "I'll introduce you to someone, and someone you already knew."

"Who?"

"My girl friend."

"Your …?" I shut up my mouth as I saw him rose up from his seat. I kept quite and followed him outside.

 

**7**

The "home" Yomiel referred to was just a small crowded apartment. As he opened the door, I heard a familiar female voice calling out from inside, "Yomiel, you're late."

No, it could not be. It simply could not …

Then I saw her with my own eyes. Not young anymore as she was already over 40 years old, but still with the same red hair and the same pair of large eyes, with unhideable wrinkles around however.

Yomiel stepped over and kissed her lightly on her lips. Then he turned round and nodded his head at my direction, "Sorry, Lynne. But I came across someone on my way."

Lynne turned towards me and gasped, "Antonio?" She was confused, and looked again at Yomiel, "But how do you know him? You shouldn't have known him, should you?"

"Well, I can talk to cats." Yomiel answered casually.

Lynne stared discontentedly at him, and walked over to pick me up. 

"You ARE really Antonio, aren't you?" she asked me gently, "I can recognize this tiny mark on your left ear. But you look exactly the same as before. How extraordinary! Where have you been all these years? Do you know how mad Kamila got when she heard you were missing? How did you come to New York? And how did you find Yomiel? Have you met him before? It's such a coincidence…."

She babbled all the way on, never stopping for one single second for my answer. She was not asking me questions. She was just talking to herself.

 

"Sissel," It was Yomiel's voice that rang in my head, "just ignore her. She is like this sometimes."

"I don't mind. She doesn't really believe you could talk to me, right?" I replied silently.

"No. She knows nothing. She is simple-minded and does not suspect."

"So, she is your girl friend now?"I asked disbelievingly.

"Correct."

Silence again.

"Now tell me the story. What happened? She was married to Cabanela, if my memory isn't lying to me." I commanded.

"Cabanela is dead." The answer came quickly and briefly.

"Dead?" I held my breath.

"Dead." He replied coldly, "shot in the forehead, one bullet."

"Shot? By whom?"

"Jowd."

"Jo …… What?!" I almost screamed.

"Keep your voice down. You shocked me."

"You SHOCKED me!" I yelled, "WHAT IN HELL happened?"

"Nobody knew exactly, but both Cabanela and Jowd's wife, Alma were shot dead one day, and Jowd confessed guilty. He never said why."

Cold words. Cold facts.

The air seemed to be frozen by Yomiel's reply, as he sank into silence again.

Lynne was still mumbling something about giving me a bath, but no one was listening. 

I finally found my words to break the ice, "And, where's Jowd now?"

"In prison. Life imprisonment."

Silence.

"Life's funny, isn't it? Like some one is playing a joke." Yomiel added.

Yeah. Funny. Very funny. You think you've changed the fate, and you think you've led all the main characters in the story to a happy ending, yet, it was not an ending after all. People don't simply "live happily ever after". Life goes on. And life is reality. Reality is sarcastic, and tragic.

No one can change reality.

'Missile, what would you think of all of these if you're still here?' I secretly asked, not hoping to receive an answer, 'But maybe for you it wouldn't matter anyway. Your Princess Kamila was saved.'

The name reminded me.

"What about Kamila? Is she okay? Her father's …" I cried out.

"She's fine I guess. She's a grown-up now. Finished college, got a Ph.D., and is now working for NASA. Great expectations."

"NASA?"

"Yep, NASA. The only one of us who seems to be walking on the bright road." He sighed.

"You mean, you're not doing well?" I asked tentatively.

"No. My company is not doing well. My stock is not doing well. I messed up in my previous marriage. And I am still no good in the current relationship. I cannot provide Lynne with anything. I'm a loser."

"Don't say so. Surely Lynne doesn't think this way if she chooses to stay with you."

"No, she doesn't. The fact is we are both losers. She is simple-headed and doesn't realize it."

"Lynne is not a police anymore, I guess?" The question came out from my instinct.

"No. She has quit. She is working in a small flower shop downstairs."

"Oh." I suddenly ran out of words.

Lynne came into rescue as she suddenly remembered something and said to Yomiel loudly, “Oh, Yomiel! I almost forgot! Some one called you one hour earlier, and he asked you to call him back.”

"Some one called me?" Yomiel looked puzzled.

"Yes, a Japanese. He said he is in the computer industry, or something like that, I guess. Let me see, where did I put the piece of paper with his phone number?" Lynne put me down, and started fumbling on the messy desk.

"Ah! Here it is!" she held up a tiny scrap of paper, and read out loud, "TAKUMI SHUU. That's his name. And his number is here." 

Yomiel took the piece of paper, and went over to the telephone, frowning.

 

He hung up the phone about fiveminutes later.

"What's it about?" Lynne asked.

"Er, he wants some sort of collaboration. I'll meet him in person tomorrow afternoon."

"That's nice." said Lynne.

"Well, we'll see." Yomiel answered lightly.

 

Takumi Shuu.

I never met this man. I would surely forget all about that strange foreign name, if it were not brought up again many years later. 

We will get to that part of the story when the time comes.

 

**8**

I stayed with Yomiel and Lynne for about two years.

Yomiel and Lynne. It seemed so unbelievable at first, but when you think about it more carefully, it was actually quite natural. Looking back at all the events that had taken place in the present time line, and also in the other time line where we came from, it was obvious how the fates of Yomiel and Lynne were intertwined.

Remember the time when we were all trapped in that submarine sinking towards the deep ocean floor? Remember how Yomiel was overpowered by hatred and solitude? Remember how Lynne's words touched his soul and drew a final end to his revenge? Yomiel was saved, not by me, nor by Missile, but by Lynne --- the young, sincere and understanding girl.

And then he saved her life in return. He had taken her custody and pointed a gun at her head, but in the end, he risked his own life to save hers. Even as a twelve-year old girl, she understood it and realized that the weird-looking man was a nice person deep down. All those years, she remembered him and thanked him. She was not saved by Jowd, nor by a mysterious meteorite falling from heaven, but by Yomiel --- the impulsive, reckless, yet kind-hearted stranger.

Their life together was, though a little bit hard concerning economic issue, but quite harmonic in general. They had a strange understanding toward each other. Or perhaps because both had already experienced the bitter jokes of life, they learned to live in a way that wouldn't hurt each other.

 

In the spring of 2001, Yomiel had more luck in his company, and they started to seriously consider getting married. Their wedding was arranged to be held in October, 2001. In that year, Lynne was already 44, and Yomiel was 59. 

I would not want to spend too much time talking about what was about to happen that autumn. You may know and you may not know. If you know, you would understand why I prefer not to talk about it.

It was the 11th of September. On that morning, they went to the Wall Street for some business affair. And they never came back. 

In short, there was a terrorist attack. Two planes were hijacked and crashed into the two highest buildings. The buildings fell, with Yomiel and Lynne inside.

I never got the chance to see their bodies.

 

How ironic! Last time, it was politics and terrorists that caused their deaths. They were at that time a systems engineering in DOD and a police investigator. This time, it was again politics and terrorists that led to their deaths, but now, they were only a common couple earning their living.

Indeed, was there anything that we really changed?

 

So again, I was the only one to be left alive.

Being alive forever is really not a gift, but a curse.

Being immortal does not really mean the ability to live on, but the inability to die.

I cursed my immortality.

 

9

I was already 32 years old. 

Hah, a 32-year-old cat. 

I began to feel like memorizing the old days, like all living creatures would feel like doing when they grow old. And I was surely old enough.

I longed for the companion of old friends. But they were nearly all gone. Missile was dead. Alma and Cabanela were dead. Jowd was in jail. Even Yomiel and Lynne were dead. There was only one person I could turn to.

Kamila.

 

Yomiel said she was working for NASA. So I went to NASA to look for her.

Finding her was an easy task, a charming and enchanting female physicist with violet hair. That's not so common in NASA.

I got a glimpse of her through the window. She wore a white overcoat and was stooping over a complicated machine, taking notes. At the age of thirty-three, she actually looked barely twenty-five. Her hair was longer, tied up at the back into a ponytail, with the same soft and soothing color. I decided not to disturb her, but simply waited and watched.

After about half an hour, she walked to the door and changed into a leisure jacket. When she picked up her handbag and left the office, I followed her out. It would be strange if she found me here at NASA, I thought. I would wait for a more proper timing.

I followed her on to a bus, got off somewhere, and walked into a hospital. She turned towards a building, went inside, and climbed up to the 3rd floor. 

 

She entered a room quietly, and in that room there was a single bed. On the bed lay a young man, eyes closed. Some strange-looking wires and tubes connected his head, mouth and wrists to some strange-looking machines. 

Kamila walked over and sat down at the bedside, reached out her hands to hold his. But he did not move, nor opened his eyes. She bent down a little, and started talking to him, slowly and gently, about the things she had done that day, and about the things that she had seen. He never answered, but she kept speaking.

She was smiling, but her smile was filled with sadness. Her hands clasped onto his, as if holding on to something she most feared to loose. Sometimes she came to a sudden stop, and you could see sparkling things in her eyes. She would then blink a few times, take a deep breath, and go on. 

Who, was this man?

 

I turned my eyes to him and examined. 

He looked young, about 25 or 26, and was very thin. He seemed to have experienced a severe accident, since there were wounds on his forehead, face, and neck. And one of his legs was missing. He was breathing and his heart seemed to be beating, but he would not wake up. 

He was vegetable.

I knew not what to do, so I secretly crawled into a hidden corner and waited. 

The daylight was fading away. The last ray of sunshine coming through the window moved from the foot of the bed gradually towards head. Then it suddenly lit up something, something that I had completely missed before. 

A core --- inside his head.

But unlike any other cores that usually radiate strong bluish color, this core was very weak, and was light yellow. 

What did that mean? He was dead already? Or not?

Curiosity seized me. 

And the only way that could satisfy my curiosity was to talk to him.

 

**10**

"So, I am already dead." That was the first thing he said after our initial greetings and my basic explanations of the how things like "souls" and "cores" worked.

"Well, er, I am not so sure about that." I hesitated, "At least, I've never seen any core like yours. And anyway, you're still breathing, at least."

"I think I'm better dead than alive." He had a soft voice, gentle and a bit timid.

A sweet boy, I thought to myself.

"So, would you mind telling me how you came into such a state?" I asked.

"Why not? After all, you're the only person who can hear me." He chuckled sadly, and began his story.

 

His name was Steve. Twenty-seven, like I had guessed. He joined NASA about one year earlier, and was in the same division as Kamila. Actually, he was working under the supervision of hers as a junior faculty. So Kamila was, in fact, his tutor. He fell for her right away, while she only treated him as a student and a boy.

Kamila was a gentle and charming lady, on which all staffs at NASA agreed. However, she was also well known for her feministic pride and her stubborn opposition towards any kind of close relationships. She had had lots of worshipers, and might still have many. But all attempts to date her had been proven useless, and all efforts to win her heart had ended up in failure. She remained single through all those years and devoted all her time and passion to her work. 

Steve was fascinated more by her passion for research than by her physical attraction. Shy as he was, Steve was quite honest to his feelings, and had his own particular way of expressing it --- through work. His happiest hours every day were the routine discussions in Kamila's office. Kamila also enjoyed working with him, because he was smart and original. Though nothing was actually said or done, an imperceptible understanding between them was gradually established. 

Ten months later, Steve finally made up his mind and spoke out. Kamila had somehow foreseen the confession coming. She was not surprised, but replied that she had to carefully consider. There was something on her mind, he could tell, some huge psychological burden that she had been unable to get rid of. But what it was, nobody had any idea of. He told her he would wait. 

They were working on a special project at that time. Everything seemed to be moving smoothly, until one day an unexpected explosion occurred. They were both there, Steve and Kamila. Acting on impulse, Steve shielded Kamila from a falling piece of iron plate under his body. A quarter of an hour later, when things got back in control, Kamila was found in a coma, but soon to recover. Steve, on the other hand, had been hit on the back side of his head and was in severe danger. Two weeks of continuous treatment kept him alive, yet unable to wake him up. 

Ever since then, he had been like this --- lying on the sick bed, unable to move a single muscle, and feeling heartbroken whenever he heard Kamila cry. He had tried once and once again to open his eyes and respond to her, but failed every time.

 

"Would miracle really happen some day?" Steve asked, "Or am I already dead?"

"Don't talk like that. And don't give up. She wouldn't want to lose you." I tried to comfort him.

"I don't want to lose her, either." He answered,  "But I wouldn't want her to waste her life on me if I am not going to get any better. I'd rather die than giving her pain."

"The pain would not fade even if you die."

"She might meet someone else and have a happy life. She might forget. At least, she wouldn't be in so much agony." He persisted.

No, boy. You're wrong. The living ones could never be released from agony. They always remember. And memories, sweet or painful, would be carved into their souls for as long as they went on living --- 20 years, 50 years, 100 years, or even perhaps, forever.

 

**11**

Not wanting to bring back more painful memories to Kamila, I chose to conceal myself to her. I went to the hospital to talk with Steve everyday like she did, hoping that I could also be of some help. There were cases in which a patient woke up miraculously. But in Steve's case, we had no such luck. One year later, on a cold winter morning, I realized that the time had come at last.

The strange yellowish "core" inside Steve's skull had become vaguer and vaguer in the past days. On that morning, I saw it finally fading away. As the last spark of light was about to vanish, I stepped over to perform the task that I had been considering of taking for the past few months. 

I had thought about it over and over again, debating with myself, questioning whether it was the right thing to do or not. And finally, at that moment, I realized that I had to do it, although it might mean deceiving Kamila in the rest of her life. 

I took possession of Steve's body.

 

Remember I said that "the power of the dead" could change over time? I, like Yomiel, gradually gained the ability to control human body as well. 

So, when miracle failed them, I decided to make a miracle myself.

For Kamila's sake, for Steve's sake, and for my own sake as well.

If I told you that I did it completely out of unselfishness, it would be a lie. I surely did it for myself, at least partially.

I had always been an outsider –in Yomiel's life, in Lynne's life, in Missile's life, or in Kamila's life. I didn't belong to their stories. I just happened to be there, as an observer. Now all the rest of them had left – Missile, Yomiel and Lynne, and even Steve, who could at least talk with me – leaving me alone in this world, facing the endless life ahead. What should I do with the excess time that I don't need? How was a cat supposed to deal with the empty and solitary future awaiting him?

I didn't want to be an outsider anymore. I wanted to be part of something, to have a real home, a real life, a real story that belonged to myself, even it meant ceasing being a cat and becoming a human being – in appearance.

 

They called it a miracle. Perhaps it was, in a sense.

"Steve" woke up, when the doctors had already given up hope. 

"Steve" started rehabilitation soon and was recovering at a tremendous speed.

"Steve" had some difficulties in speaking and writing at first, but it was understandable since his brain was badly damaged in the accident.

"Steve" had also lost some parts of his earlier memory and had completely forgotten all the physics he once learned, but it was again explainable.

"Steve" regained full control over his body after 6 months' rehabilitation. He had lost one leg in the accident and had to use a wheel chair. After another 6 months, he could walk with the help of a walking stick.

"Steve" started re-education of himself, from the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic, to the advanced mathematics, chemistry and physics. With a human's brain, the learning process didn't take very long. (Don't you think that the past 30 years that I had lived were completely wasted away. I kept learning things every day.) Perhaps I was simply re-activating Steve's brain and got all his prior knowledge back. Before long, the recovery of knowledge was enough for "Steve" to continue working as a scientist, at NASA.

Two years later, "Steve" and Kamila got married.

 

**12**

What, indeed, was my feelings towards Kamila?

That was one question I kept asking myself through the following years.

I knew Missile loved her, and I knew Steve loved her. They both loved her deeply. 

But what about me? No, I would not call it love. I liked her, yes. But that was not the same kind of feeling. 

And she was not like Yomiel or Missile, either. 

To me, Yomiel was perhaps the most special and important person. A soul mate, like I've said before. Although he was in a sense extremely gloomy and even somehow distorted, he was still and would always be the first one who noticed me, reached out to me, shared his life with me, and gave me a name. For these, I'd forever cherish him in my heart as the irreplaceable one.

Missile, on the other hand, was a most smart and respectable friend. Although the time we really did spend together was quite short, one night actually (considering the fact that during the last ten years when we lived under the same roof, he had already forgotten everything, and was uninterested in anyone else except Miss Kamila). But that single night we adventured together held an undying memory of friendship.

With Kamila, however, it was different. 

First of all, I was not very close to Kamila even in the years that I was adopted, at least not as close as Missile was. Second, I was playing Steve's part instead of myself. The subsequent 50 years that I spent with Kamila was the first time that I ever lived in this world as a human, instead of a cat. Such a drastic change of identity and way of life was a tremendous challenge for me. But her tender personality had made it so easy and smooth for me. I really admired her and felt grateful for it.

 

And what, was her feelings towards me? Or should I say "Steve"? 

I could not tell, really. She liked "Steve" very much, for she looked so brightened up after hearing the news that Steve gained conscious. But she never showed any excess of passion. She had a strangely perfect self-composure, highly constrained affection, and an unalterable placid attitude in all the years that followed. It seemed to me that she had purposely shielded herself from any kind of over-indulgence in personal emotion.

The reason for it, I knew not. But I could guess, somehow.

There were times that she went to see her father in jail. (I knew it, but she didn't know that I knew.) She never asked me to accompany her, nor did she ever utter a single word about her father. Every time when she came back, she would become more silent than usual for a few days, but still would mention nothing. 

There were also times that she went to visit her mother's grave. (I knew it again, but again she didn't know that I knew.) She always went alone. 

Many years later, when her father Jowd died in prison, she asked for one week's leave from work. Even for such an occasion, she still chose to tell me nothing, and finished with the funeral by herself. She never, ever mentioned her father and mother, or the names of Lynne, Cabanela or anyone from Arlington County.

So there was a place inside her heart that she wanted nobody else to visit, a wound that she kept only to herself that she wanted nobody else to touch, a memory that belonged to the past and buried with all the names related to the past deep down somewhere in her soul. 

I knew, but I had to hold my tongue. 

So I played the role of a good husband. That was at least what I could do. I guessed that both Missile and Steve would want someone to be there and watch out for her.

 

Time flew. Soon it was 2010. 

In September that year, Kamila and I were choosing a present for the birthday of a colleague's son. I was browsing through the video game section in a shopping mall, when I suddenly caught sight of a game named "Ghost Trick". I reached out my hand almost instinctively.

On the back cover, it wrote "Ghost Trick for Nitendo DS", and the name of the man who developed it was "Takumi Shuu".

Takumi Shuu.

The name stirred a memory.

It was the same name that Lynne talked about on the night when I reunited with Yomiel. And it was this man with whom Yomiel met the next day.

I have never seen this man, and was never able to know what exactly passed between them that day. But one thing was clear, Yomiel told him the story, out of some reason that we had missed the chance of discovering.

I bought the game, not for the boy, but for myself. I quickly play through it, and found it recapturing the events that occurred in the past in great detail while concealing historically and politically related facts. He did a good job, this Takumi Shuu, although the final happy ending was somewhat misleading. Perhaps he did not know what really happened later on, or perhaps he simply wanted to make an idealized story for the audience. After all, game is game, and life is life. People game to get away from real life. So why not conceal the cruel reality and make up an ever-after happy ending? Players would love it.

I would like to meet this man, really. If I were still a cat, I would find a way to travel to Japan and find him. But I had other obligations to fulfill. There was Kamila. I had promised to stay by her side, and I would always keep my words.

 

I played the game only once. I would not want to go through it a second time. I had been there, in reality, not in the game. 

I did not show it to Kamila. She was not interested in games, anyway.

Later, I locked the game card away in my drawer. 

And it lay there, lonely and silently, as a secret memento of my past.

 

**13**

Living inside Steve's body, I was able to grow and age normally, as a human. My own body, containing that piece of powerful meteorite, was carefully hidden away. 

The body of Steve would age, and become old, and would eventually reach its end. And Kamila, she would also get old and pass away some day. What then, should I do? I had always kept asking myself this question.

I had a vague scheme, and I kept working on it. But I held it secret for over 50 years, until the right timing finally approached.

 

It was the year 2054. Kamila was 89 years old, and Steve was 82.

Even at that age, Kamila was still a contributing member working at NASA. Her major research was related to the Mars' Exploitation Program, the designing and building of rockets and spaceships.

Ever since the "Sojouner Rover" in 1997, NASA had sent quite a number of Mars Pathfinders onto that red planet. They had planned to send people up there by 2030. However, owing to the unexpected financial crisis and drastic decrease in budget, this ambitious mission was largely postponed. Till 2054, they still hadn't managed to transport human onto Mars. But they were building larger spaceships, and sending more rovers as well as other small machines up there for investigation purpose. Kamila was in charge of a program at that time, and the spacecraft was scheduled to launch on September 5th that year.

We were both quite old then. I could feel the energy fading from Steve's body, and Kamila's health also got worse every day. So at last, I decided to confess everything, including my scheme for my own future.

 

"There is something I need to tell you, Kamila." I told her that day, "I've lied to you. I am not Steve. The man you married was already dead for 50 years."

"I am from another world. Not from the dead, but from a world in between life and death. I'm sorry that I cheated you."

I told her everything, from beginning to end. I showed her the game, and I showed her my body --- the cat's non-living and non-dying body. I demonstrated my abilities in front of her eyes.

She kept silent, and was calm, almost too calm for me to understand.

She sat there, looking down at her shoes, frowning. Her wrinkled face wore a familiar expression that had been unchanged through the years. Finally she said without looking up: "The meteorite, Temsik, you said, is THE TEMSIK? The one that you dug up from that park?"

"Yes." I answered. She was referring to the large piece of meteorite that knocked into the ground on that night. In 2015, I persuaded a group of researches in NASA to dig it out for investigations.

"The one that you've been working on all these years?" She pressed on.

"Yes."

"So that was why you wanted to study it so much? To find out the reason of your special capabilities?"

"No. To find out a way to die."

"Oh, I see." she mumbled, "And, have you found it?"

"I guess so. But I might be wrong.”

"How?"

"Cosmic radiation." I said simply, and she immediately understood. 

It was the most sensible idea. A counteracting power against that of the meteorite, if it really exists, should be found where it came from. For tens of years I have studied that piece of rock, experimented on it using man-made radiation, tested various theories and conditions. And finally, with some careful calculation, I reached a conclusion: when exposed to a large amount of cosmic radiation for a continuous period of time, the power of the meteorite to generate infinite time would decrease and eventually quench. 

"So you have a plan, don't you?" Kamila asked cautiously.

"Yes." I replied, "And I need your help."

"You want me to smuggle you into the spaceship?"

"Not exactly. I only need you to cause a diversion, and I could sneak in myself."

"What if we failed?"

"Then there is another way. We could repeat what was done to Yomiel's body by the terrorists --- use a mechanic arm to take out the meteorite by force. But I'd rather not use such a violent method."

"Then, what if your theory is wrong? If you find that even when you get out there in the space, you still go on like this forever?"

"Well, I think I have enough self-confidence. If the worst thing occurs, then I guess I'll simply have to face it, since it is my own choice. Or maybe I would find some way to get back to earth. Or perhaps I could wait on Mars for the first earth immigrants."

"Seems you've made up your mind."

"Sure. Positive. I've made up my mind for over ten years. So will you help me?"

Without saying a word, she nodded, slowly and firmly. 

"Thank you." I said.

"And Kamila," I added, “can you forgive me --- for lying to you all these years? For I am not Steve, and I am not even human."

"There's nothing to forgive." she smiled, her wrinkled face like a blooming flower, "It doesn't matter what your real name is, what your real identity is, or even what you are, you are the one who has been with me for half of my life, and I owe you many thanks. To tell you the truth, if I were young and healthy, I would want to go with you." She stood up, bent over and kissed me on my lips. Then she gently added another word, a name --- "Sissel".

 

**14**

In June of 2054, Steve died officially.

On September 5th, the spacecraft for Mars launched successfully, however, with a small black cat inside. 

And that was my farewell to earth, and to eternal life.

I was floating in the spaceship, flying farther and farther away from the earth, and leaving Kamila there. I never knew how many years longer she lived, nor how she went through the last years alone. I could only pray for her.

And as I travelled in the universe, I felt like floating in a vast ocean --- an ocean of time and eternity. All of a sudden, life and death seemed so much alike. Being alive or dead became meaningless, and the only sensible thing is your mere existence. 

Do you understand what I am saying? No, probably not, because I myself got confused. I felt that both my body and my spirit were melting into this vast invisible ocean. I could also feel my energy leaving me, like water vaporizing into thin air. I knew I was dying, finally.

Dying. It was such a beautiful feeling. So quite and tranquil. So peaceful. It was like slowly falling asleep, except that there will be no waking up again.

But it was such a long process, and I had plenty of time before I finally closed my eyes. So, what should I do with all the time that I had drifting alone in the dark universe? Maybe, I would tell a story, a story about a cat that had lived for over 80 years, and finally found a way to die.

 

I had no audience. There was no one else besides me up in the vast emptiness. There were only the stars and cosmic radiation. The radiation was driving me to sleep, like I had expected. And there is another thing that I had not mentioned yet --- another discovery that I had made about the meteorite. 

Do you know why as a spirit I could communicate with other ghosts or cores directly via exchange of thoughts? This ability was also attributed to the meteorite. It acted as a media for transforming thoughts into special electromagnetic waves and vice versa. Moreover, this power would not be eliminated by cosmic radiation. Thus, the meteorite could in fact serve as a recording apparatus --- thoughts could be captured, transformed and stored for perhaps an extremely long period of time.

I never tested this theory, and I would never have further chances of testing it. Therefore, I would simply follow my own instinct and self-confidence. So I recited my life-long story --- a somewhat dull and boring one --- inside my head, to myself, hoping that it could be preserved and may, some day in the future, be found and be heard by some lonely travellers in this vast universe.

And if you are actually listening, then my efforts are not in vain.

 

I fear my time has come, for I have almost lost my strength. 

So, farewell, my dear fiends. 

Farewell, my dear audience.

Farewell.

…

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3\. Rintaro Okabe, main character of the cartoon and video game 'Steins Gate'. He is a self-proclaimed mad scientist and has special ability to keep all his memories from another timeline after time has been manipulated.
> 
> 4\. "Eight Million Ways to Die", a detective novel written by Lawrence Block in the 1980's. The book depicted the chaotic and tragic social lives of New York at that time.


	4. EPILOGUE

February, 4937 A.D., Martian Base No. VII. 

It was a small crowded lab on the 2nd floor below ground of the main research building. A bronze plate bearing the engravings "Archaeology Division" hung loosely on the iron door. Piles of boxes filled up the room, and all kinds of strangely shaped pots and rocks scattered on the desks as well as on the floor.

A middle-aged man was sitting in front of one of the desks, and busy examining one small piece of rock. The rock had a special color and texture distinct from any other rocks you can see inside the same room. It had been recently dug up from the Martian soil, and not yet been cleaned.

 

The man carefully rubbed off some more mud from the surface of the rock and looked closely. Then he placed it onto a strange-looking machine, and turned on the switch. He watched attentively at a small screen on the machine, and listened.

A digital voice started reading aloud all the information listed on the screen:

"Analyzing material composition; …… Material composition analysis complete; …… Comparing with database; ……"

"……"

"Comparison complete."

"Major components: Major component No. 1, unknown, not found in all databases; Major component No. 2, unknown, not found in all databases; Major component No. 3, unknown, not found in all databases; ……"

"Trace components: Trace component No. 1, DNA fragment, hit found, 99.999997% identical to Felis silvestris[5], ancient Earth species, extinct after 3500 A.D.; Trace component No. 2, DNA fragment, hit found, 99.999998% identical to Felis silvestris, ancient Earth species, extinct after 3500 A.D.; Trace component No. 3, bone fraction, hit found, 99.9996% identical to Felis silvestris, ancient Earth species, extinct after 3500 A.D.;……"

"……"

"Analyzing spiritual composition; … … Spiritual composition identified; …… Data processing; …… Data synchronizing; …… Comparing with database; …… Hit found; …… Recalculating wave functions; …… Transforming data set, please select language ---"

The voice stopped, waiting for input from the operator.

The man quickly typed in "Neo-Martian English" from the keyboard, and pressed "Enter".

"Transforming data set into selected language: Neo-Martian English; …… Transformation in process, please wait; ……Transformation complete, new data set generated; Press 'Enter' to continue ---”

The man pressed down the button.

The lifeless digital voice was gone, and replaced by a low background noise. 

The man shifted uneasily in his chair, and waited. 

 

Then, it started. 

An old cracking male voice spoke through the microphone, with certain difficulty and strain:

"How long can a cat live?

15 years perhaps. Or even up to 20 years for some really lucky ones. 

But have you ever heard of a cat that has lived for over 80 years and still shows no single sign of dying, or even aging?

Probably not. 

Well, now here is a story for you, my dear audience --- a story about a black cat named "Sissel". And you know what? That cat was me. 

……"

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 5\. Felis silvestris, Latin name for cats.


End file.
